A very personal, and eclectic, collection of wargaming plots and projects; battles and campaigns... with pictures; lotsa pictures....

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Comments...

'What do you mean, Marshal, by this comment "Here be dragons"?'For some reason, I seem unable to post comments on several blogspots, including this one. There are a few upon which I can. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I thought I'd reply to the comments in my last post, and enlarge upon one particular point.

Thanks to Doug for the information. Clearly I my memory, suppositions or assumptions were mistaken. Can't think why. At any rate, those Warrior figures are nice little miniatures - 'cute' is the word that comes to mind - and they make a fine Advance Guard for my Austrian army.

For the others, 'Rodger' (Rodger Wood) and 'Jacko' (Paul Jackson) were the other two players in a three player Napoleonic campaign way back in 1991-92. This was a limited affair, using small forces (what we had available) in a Northern France theatre bounded by St Dizier in the east, Valenciennes in the north, and Paris in the southwest. The premise was that Napoleon had been rescued from St Helena late in 1815, and landed on the shores of France on 1st January 1816. Military operations opened a month later.

At the time, Rodger's French army comprised 348 figures, which he organised into 3 Army Corps, plus cavalry and some Guard units. Paul could field 280, mostly British, but with a small Russian contingent of 2 Line infantry, one jager and an Uhlan unit. Under the nom-de-guerre Archduke Charles, I fielded a very modest Corps of 190figures, the Austrians eked out by 2 18-figure Brunswick battalions. Actually, I could have fielded two Grenadier battalions, but figured that to be too over-representative.

I'm also in the process of creating a small independent Corps of Brunswickers, beginning with the 2 small 18-figure battalions, a half-battalion of Jager (10 figures), a squadron each of Uhlans (4) and Hussars (4) and a field piece (4 crew).One of those little 60-figure detachments sent out to guard some bridge or road against a possible flanking movement.

Back to the campaign: after a series of skirmishes and battles, the Allies drove the French gradually to the gates of Paris, where, on 1 March 1816 the two contingents combined to bring Napoleon to bay near the villages of Doumartin and Louvres. Unfortunately, their ill-cordinated attacks (The Archduke, not realising that the bulk of Wellington's troops had still to come up, launched his attack before his Allies were ready) failed to drive the French altogether out of their positions. Though they came desperately close, at the end of the day, both sides remained pretty much where they began it.

Casualties were very heavy, however. I had enacted a rule at the outset that any contingent that had been reduced (after post-battle adjustments and returns) to less than half their original strength, they were out of the campaign and had to retreat to their respective bases. A count confirmed that the Austrians were indeed no longer capable of continuing the campaign, but as it transpired nor were Wellington or Napoleon! Clearly, the Allies had failed to depose Napoleon for the third time, but the latter had equally failed to drive the invaders completely out of France.

An indecisive result, but an eminently satisfying one, from my point of view...

2 comments:

There seems to be alot of talk about people not being able to comment. I have found that if I open a blog from my email I cannot comment, but if I open the same blog in my internet browser then I can comment! BTW that was an enjoyable campaign for me. Great fun.